A BODY is to be exhumed today at a graveyard in north Wales as part of a search for an Irish man who has been missing for over 30 years.
Joseph Brendan Dowley was 63 years old when he was last seen alive in October 1985.
His disappearance has remained a mystery for the last 33 years.
A recent cold case review by North Wales Police and gardaí has led detectives to believe that a body buried at a cemetery in Anglesey could be that of the missing Irishman.
Mr Dowley was living in London at the time of his disappearance.
The last sighting of him was by his daughter who dropped him off at the bus station in Kilkenny city, where Mr Dowley was due to travel to Dublin and from there by ferry to Wales.
He never arrived home to London, and his whereabouts have remained a mystery for more than three decades.
However, based on a review of medical records from England obtained by the Dowley family in recent years, it seems that scars on the unidentified body are a match to the medical history of Mr Dowley.
The unidentified body was found washed up in Wales on 9 November 1995, and had been in the water for a number of weeks.
It is hoped a DNA profile will be generated from the body within weeks, and this, in turn, will then be compared to samples provided by the Dowley family.
Only then will it be known if the body that has lain at Menai Bridge Cemetery in Wales since 1985 is in fact that of Joseph Dowley, who last seen getting on a bus in Kilkenny.
See More: Ireland, Missing Person, Wales
